Back Heathrow complains Hillingdon has to spend money fighting runway – refuses to say how much funding it gets from Heathrow

Date added: January 5, 2017

The “astroturf” group (not actually a real community group) Back Heathrow gets its funding from Heathrow. It refuses to say how much money it gets from the airport. John Holland-Kaye has in the past also refused to say how much it contributes. Back Heathrow is complaining that Hillingdon borough has spent a lot of money on its campaigns against the 3rd runway. This is money that the borough is being forced to spend, because of the activities of Heathrow, against which it has to defend its residents. The account for Back Heathrow show it has around £154,000 in the bank; it has assets of around £653,000; it gives its net worth as about £482,000; its current liabilities are shown as – £171,000; and it only has one employee, Rob Gray. No activity is reported, and no turnover is reported. Back in December 2014 the Sunday Times revealed that Back Heathrow had had at least £100,000 from the airport, but no details are ever given. Back Heathrow says, rather bizarrely, that ‘It would not be fair to publish the amounts given’. Their next accounts will be published on 31st March 2017. Being private companies, the sums cannot be extracted through FoI. Hillingdon Council makes its figures public, and has defended its campaigning, saying it is representing the views of residents.
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Back Heathrow has declined to release details of its funding after it revealed details of Hillingdon Council’s anti-third runway campaign spending

BY ALEXANDER BALLINGER (Get West London)
5.1.2017

The pro-third runway campaign group Back Heathrow has refused to reveal how much money it receives from Heathrow Airport after it published figures showing Hillingdon Council had spent £150,000 on its campaign since 2015.

Back Heathrow released figures in December which revealed Hillingdon Council had spent £154,219 on campaigning against the airport’s expansion between January 2015 and August 2016.

The money spent by the council included £50,000 to fund anti-expansion group HACAN (Heathrow Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise) and £45,800 for Stop Heathrow Expansion.

Back Heathrow slammed the council for using taxpayers’ money but has now declined to reveal how much money it received from the airport.

‘It would not be fair to publish the amounts given’

A spokesman for Back Heathrow said: “We are very grateful for the support we have received from Heathrow and also from individual residents and local businesses.

“It would not be fair to publish the amounts given by those who have chosen to help our campaign since our launch in 2013.”

The Hillingdon Council figures, obtained by Back Heathrow using a Freedom of Information request, also showed that the council spent £602,860 on lobbying against Heathrow expansion between January 2007 and December 2014.

Hillingdon Council has launched action to begin the judicial review procedure in an attempt to overturn the government’s backing of the Heathrow expansion, which was revealed in October 2016.

Back Heathrow has once again criticised Hillingdon Council for its use of the public’s money, and says it has not spent taxpayers’ money itself.

A spokesman from the group said: “Unlike Hillingdon Council and its unnecessary legal challenge against Heathrow, we have not spent a single penny of taxpayers’ money and our funding has only come from people and organisations that share our aims.

“Thousands of local residents have had no choice but to finance the council’s absurdly expensive anti-expansion campaign, even if they disagree with it.”

Heathrow Airport has declined to reveal how much money it contributes to Back Heathrow.

Back Heathrow was initially launched through funding from the airport but says it now has more than 100,000 supporters.

Campaign group Stop Heathrow Expansion has now criticised Back Heathrow for failing to make its funding public.

Coordinator for Stop Heathrow Expansion, Robert Barnstone said: “Back Heathrow is an astroturf organisation – pretending to be a grassroots campaign group when in fact it is bankrolled by Heathrow Airport’s coffers.

“Given Heathrow Airport are embarking on a PR charm offensive with local communities and politicians alike, why wouldn’t they want to be as open an honest as possible with the amount of money they’re spending?

“What have they got to hide?”

Hillingdon Council has defended its campaigning, saying it is representing the views of residents.

A statement from the council said: “Hillingdon residents have repeatedly voiced their opposition to any expansion at Heathrow, and our job is to represent their views and challenge this decision by the government to back a third runway.

“Residents are already breathing illegal levels of air pollution, and further expansion would exacerbate this along with worsening aircraft noise, pressure on public transport and a myriad of other problems it would bring.

“The government has gone back on its promise that Heathrow would not be expanded, no ifs no buts, and we have been left with no choice but to fight this in the courts.”

“Back Heathrow” tries to blame councils for having to spend money, defending themselves against its runway plans

December 17, 2016

The lobby group funded and staffed by Heathrow, “Back Heathrow”, has had the (ill judged) nerve to criticise councils for spending money to oppose their expansion plans. Back Heathrow has attacked Hillingdon Council for spending more than £800,000 between 2007 and August 2016 on fighting the 3rd runway, while cutting public services. Back Heathrow say Hillingdon is having to make cuts of £309,000 in early support service and children’s centres, with the threat of £100,000 more cuts next year. And they complain that Richmond has spent nearly £109,000 opposing Heathrow expansion between 2007 and 2014 – and so on with other councils. Heathrow is trying to give the impression that residents in these boroughs want the runway, and councils are wasting money. They ignore the inconvenient fact that there is huge opposition to the runway within these councils, and the councils can see not only the effect of noise, air pollution and congestion the runway would cause, but also the social and infrastructure stresses – for example, on housing demand. Heathrow’s plans are costing, and could continue to cost, these councils a great deal of money. Heathrow is responsible for a lot of public money that taxpayers would have to fork out, to deal with the impact of its expansion.

Extent to which “Back Heathrow” is funded by Heathrow, and is not a true community campaign, revealed

December 1, 2014

“Back Heathrow” is an industry funded pressure group, the aim of which is to drum up support for a 3rd Heathrow runway. It was set up with at least £100,000 from Heathrow airport – maybe more. Its website just says that it had money from Heathrow to set up. Matt Gorman from Heathrow admitted at a public meeting in Putney on 27th November than Heathrow continues to fund it, but nobody will give any figures. “Back Heathrow” is a classic astroturfing campaign (ie. making out that it is community led, when it is not). Its co-ordinator is Rob Gray, was previously a director of the Aviation Foundation, another lobbying group established by the industry. Other staff working for Back Heathrow are current or former Heathrow employees. They have recently distributed hundreds of thousands of glossy newspapers to households across west London, with no mention anywhere on these that they are paid for (at least in part) by Heathrow. They try to give the impression of being independent information. Back Heathrow claim to have 50,000 people signed up, but this is largely due to scare tactics, implying Heathrow workers will lose their jobs without a 3rd runway. This has now been revealed by the Sunday Times.